James Bower - US grants

The area of neuroengineering and parallel computing are closely related and their developments go hand in hand. Of the various ways in which a parallel computer can be implemented with individual computational processing elements, the hypercube is one. It is arrived at by taking the sequence of a point to a line, a line to a square, a square to a cube and subsequent generalizations to hypercube architectures. A processor is located at each vertex. Such a topology is not as tightly connected as others but is sufficient to allow significant speed-up in those calculations involving processors in relatively close neighborhoods. The neural architecture is connected much more densely. It is also analog and involves nonlinear summing of signals with subsequent thresholding (taking a large signal or nothing depending upon whether the sum is large or small). It is thus quite different, although it has parallelism in common. The hypercube is a good parallel computer on which to study the behavior of potential neuroengineering systems, for example an artificial vision system. Vice versa, the neuroengineering approaches in development are excellent tools by which to control the loading of the processors in a parallel machine such as the hypercube and to control the actual numerical procedure itself. The fields of endeavor are highly cross-disciplinary. The benefits to the engineering profession by support of such a parallel computing effort will be enormous in terms of speeds of processing and calculations which will be attained, as well as large problems which can ultimately be handled. The orientation of the specific cross-disciplinary team is that of neuroengineering. This is an effort which involves vision in particular and is directed towards its understanding and its operation as an engineering system. In addition, effort is being directed towards understanding of learning and memory processes. Learning in particular involves complex processing which for the moment is too complex and too little understood to be effectively, if at all, integrated into the hardware of a neuroengineered chip or optical system.

This project will initiate a hands-on inquiry-based science curriculum in all the elementary school classrooms of the Pasadena Unified School District. The District is urban, multicultural and multiracial. The District's partner, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is a preeminent research university. Their combined effort will use a method proven during four years of a very successful partnership between Caltech and one Pasadena pilot school. The initial education for teachers will be presented in small groups each led by a mentor teacher and a volunteer science professional. During these group meetings the teachers will have an opportunity to investigate kit materials which they will use later in their classrooms. The small group will work through the kits in a cooperative learning environment, while the co- leaders emphasize the philosophy and methods of hands-on teaching as well as the scientific subject matter which relates to each kit. During the school year, resource teachers will work with teachers in their classrooms, and meet with them during group meetings. At these sessions teachers will be able to explore other science units and exchange experiences and ideas with their colleagues. The total cost sharing for the project will be 200% of the NSF portion.

The principle objective of this project is to support the distribution of GENESIS, the GEneral NEural Simulation System developed over the last several years in Professor Bower's laboratory. In particular the objective is to establish and maintain the necessary hardware, software and personnel to support offsite users of the GENESIS system. The support of offsite users encompasses several areas. First, standard software support will be provided, including access to new versions of GENESIS, existing documentation of both the simulator and specific simulations developed using it, and comprehensive user "bug" reports as they are reported. In addition to supplying the basic GENESIS system to offsite users, Professor Bower and his staff will also provide a centralized source through which both bug fixes and extensions to the GENESIS platform can be distributed. They intend also to establish a centralized site through which researchers will be able to communicate interactively in developing simulations. Finally, due to the modular structure of the simulator and its component parts, they will establish a central site through which new computationally interesting models, simulator graphical tools and basic simulator "elements" can be shared and distributed by GENESIS users.

This award provides funds to help with the establishment and initial operation of a microfabrication facility that will produce semi-conductor devices to be used in neuroscience, microelectronics and related areas of microdevice research. The neuroscience devices will be used for both in vitro and in vivo experimentation aimed at the simultaneous monitoring of the activity of an array of nerve cells. Other types of devices to be fabricated include micro-robots, -sensors, -antennas and pumps. An important role of the he facility is expected to be the training of students and advanced investigators who have need of these devices in the techniques used for microfabrication. The remarkable progress in the miniaturization of electronic circuit boards has lead to the realization that a variety of other types of micrometer-sized devices can be made. these include both mechanical and electronic devices. In particular, the ability to fabricate microchip-like multi-well cell culture dishes, where each well is the size of a single cell, has opened up the possibility of simultaneous recording of the activity of each of many interconnected nerve cells growing in culture. This type of experimentation could lead to significant advances in understanding the operation of networks of nerve cells, an area which has, in recent years, been the subject of much theoretical interest. Similar devices, which could be implanted directly in the brain, should allow measurement of the activity of many cells in a single region of the brain. Such experimentation has enormous potential for clarifying our understanding of the functional organization of the brain and of how brain cells integrate and differentiate sensory input.

This award to James Bower will support continued development and distribution of A General Neural Simulation System (GENESIS) for Computational Neurobiology. The specific extensions and further development include the release of a new version of the software, continued efforts to develop versions of the package on parallel machines, continued documentation, development of an interface between GENESIS and the simulator NEURON, and the extension of the development of simulator performance measures to network. In addition, this award will allow new collaborations with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the Scientific Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. This package will be used by both the research and the educational communities. The award is being supported by the Computational Neuroscience Program, the Numeric, Symbolic, and Geometric Computation Program, and the Computational Biology Program.

This award will support the purchase of the 570-node Intel Delta Touchstone System. This will be the world's fastest computer. The computer will be housed on the California Institute of Technology's campus, but has been acquired through the Concurrent Supercomputing Consortium. There are 14 members of the consortium, ranging from federal agencies, government labs, universities and Intel. The immediate benefit of the use of this machine will be to solve problems in areas of neurobiology, chemical physics, fluid dynamics and astrophysics. The researchers will attack problems in these and other areas that could not be approached with existing computers. The science, in this research, is driving the development of computational hardware and software. Experience gained by this set of researchers on this machine will demonstrate the use of parallel supercomputers to the nation's scientists. Further, it will help in developing new parallel architectures.

The California Institute of Technology will develop and deliver through a collaborative effort by scientists, teacher- educators, and master teachers, a one-semester course for the elementary teacher education program. Future elementary teachers will construct their own science knowledge and work cooperatively in a "hands on" science classroom environment. These prospective teachers will do challenging investigations with sophisticated tools while modeling good science teaching. Simultaneously, the course will provide a solid foundation in fundamental principles of biology, chemistry, physics and earth science. The course will be integrated into the elementary science teacher program.

This award will provide support for the "First Annual Computation and Neural Systems Meeting", to be held in San Francisco, July 26-31, 1992. The meeting will bring together experimental and theoretical neurobiologists along with engineers, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, physicists, and mathematicians interested in understanding how biological neural systems compute. The meeting will equally emphasize experimental, model-based, and more abstract theoretical approaches to understanding neurobiological computations.

Dr. James Bower is a biologist on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology, and an active proponent of inquiry-based hands-on science education. Dr. Bower has designed a project that will an NSF-supported elementary teacher enhancement effort in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) to the middle school level. Project SEED (Science for Early Educational Development) is being supported by a four-year award from the Teacher Enhancement Program to establish a hands on inquiry-based instructional program in all of the 22 elementary schools in PUSD. The students entering middle school are encountering a traditional textbook/lecture format in science class, and parents have begun to demand expansion of the outstanding elementary school instruction to the upper grades (3,500 students in 5 middle schools). This project will train teachers in the use of hands on science kits, establish a materials support system for refurbishment of kits, engage scientists from the community in teacher workshops and in classroom activities, and encourage integration of science with other curricular subjects through additional summer workshops. This project will create a comprehensive and integrated K-8 science curriculum for the public schools in Pasadena, and will prepare all middle school teachers responsible for science instruction to deliver exemplary learning experiences. The collaboration between Cal Tech and the Pasadena Unified School District has been a productive partnership, and the expansion of the project from elementary to middle schools is a model for other districts to follow. Cost sharing by the University and school district represents 104% of the NSF contribution.

ABSTRACT 9316433 Bower "Neural Simulation Demonstrations at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting and at the Second Annual Computation & Neural Systems Meeting" This project is to demonstrate state of the art computer simulation techniques in computational neuroscience at two major scientific meetings. One meeting, the second annual Computation and Neural Systems meeting will be held the first week of August in Washington DC. Approximately 300 scientists are expected to register and present a wide range of research results in computational neuroscience. The second meeting is the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and will also be held in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of November. This meeting will register upwards of 15,000 neurobiologists and represents the premier meeting on neurobiology in the world. The primary purpose of the demonstrations are to expose large numbers of neuroscientists to the use of computer simulation techniques in neurobiology. In addition, the project will provide technical information on the methods used in these simulations, the range of simulation software currently available, and demonstrations of several aspects of new computer technology that are relevant to efforts to simulate and understand the brain. This project is supported by the Division of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience and the Computational Biology Activities Program.***

This award will support the Second Annual Computational and Neural Systems Meeting, to be held in Washington, DC, July 31 through August 6, 1993. Computational neuroscience is a new and growing area in the biological sciences. The conference will bring together people from various fields: biology, computer science, mathematics, engineering, and cognition. The award will support the involvement of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty.

A variety of small freshwater fishes are known as weakly electric fish, since they have an electric organ like that of the electric eel, but produce only a small voltage with it. Their electric organ discharge, the EOD, has a particular waveform and temporal pattern, and produces a spatially patterned electric field around the fish. A sophisticated system of electroreceptor organs in the skin allows them to investigate their environment by detecting changes in this electric field produced by objects around them, and the signals of other fish. By analogy to the bat and the dolphin auditory echolocation system, this electrosensory behavior is called electrolocation. This project incorporates electrical field measurements into computational simulations to produce novel three-dimensional reconstructions of the electrosensory images detected by the fish. Detailed analysis of the spatial and temporal organization of these electric fields will help to better understand both the mechanisms by which they are generated, as well as their possible significance for object recognition. Development of a simulator capable of accurately reconstructing the fields will allow a quantitative investigation of the electrosensory consequences of fish movements during exploratory behavior. This combined mathematical, physiological and behavioral approach will clarify how the external environment is "imaged" by a whole sensory system, and how that image is used to guide spatially oriented behavior, which is a major general issue for sensory neuroscience. There is potential impact in two other fields, one in bioengineering development of sensing systems for robotics or aids to handicapped, and the other in field ecology where the this software for mapping electric field potential data could be used for analyzing aquatic salinity data to track critical changes in estuarine ecosystems.

9453935 Pine This project is designed to promote district-wide change to hands- on inquiry science teaching in the elementary schools of at least fourteen school districts. The model to be supported builds on the experience of the Caltech Precollege Science Initiative (CAPSI), in collaboration with school districts in Pasadena, California, Maui, Hawaii, and Conejo Valley, California. The main features of the model are the initial creation of a fully transformed pilot school, that embodies total teacher support, including science materials, ongoing professional development, and frequent collegial interaction with a mentoring resource teacher. Critical to the entire change effort is the partnership of the school district with practicing scientists and engineers from a university, college, industry, or the community. During this project CAPSI would work with fourteen urban school districts in California to bring about similar change. The total cost sharing of just Caltech and Pasadena will be 10 percent of the NSF portion of the award. ***

The grant requested in this proposal will support the development of a technology for the fabrication of microelectrode arrays ("probes"). The probes will be capable of being inserted with minimal tissue trauma into the brain, where they will record neuronal signals. The arrays will be fabricated using silicon micromachining methods, and will be tested in anesthetized animals. CMOS integrated circuits will also be designed, to amplify the signals recorded from each of the several recording sites on a single probe, and multiplex them onto a single output line. Interconnect and encapsulation methods will be developed to combine the probes and electronics into a package suitable for use in animals. The probes will be designed so that the CMOS electronics can ultimately be integrated on a common substrate with the probes. The probes will be used to obtain simultaneous recordings from multiple sites in the mammalian brain. Such recordings are used to obtain information that is not available through other means, in order to learn about how the brain works on the single-neuron and network levels. The instruments to be developed under this grant will greatly extend our ability to conduct this basic neuroscience research.

9512763 Bower This award provides three years of support for the annual Computation and Neural Systems meeting. The meeting brings together experimental and theoretical neurobiologists along with engineers, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, physicists and mathematicians interested in understanding how biological neural systems compute. Equal emphasis is placed on experimental, model-based and more theoretical approaches to understanding neurobiological computation. Speakers include both senior scientists as well as young scientists. This meeting is an important venue for introducing new computational techniques to the neuroscience community and for the formation of new collaboration in this relatively new highly interdisciplinary field. This award provides travel costs of post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and young faculty without grant support. It is the creative energy of new young scientists that will generate new theory in this field.

9453959 Bower To enable elementary school teachers to teach and assess hands-on, inquiry-based science instruction effectively, this project will create and pilot-test 4 Modules designed to improve and broaden teacher science content knowledge. The proposed modules, to be developed and piloted by teams of teachers from Pasadena, California and scientists from Caltech, will be field tested by school system partnerships in Buffalo, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, Highline, Washington, and Huntsville, Alabama. The modules will have several distinct characteristics. First, each will be based on a science content common to most kit-based curricula. Second, each module will be developed by a collaboration of experienced teachers and scientists. Third, the modules will be designed to be used by teacher-scientist teams leading groups of other teachers in an inquiry-based learning community like that of an exemplary classroom. Materials will initially be published with desktop publishing and then disseminated via existing national networks of school systems engaged in supporting inquiry science instruction at the elementary school level. The cost sharing will be 10% of the NSF funds. ***

The ultimate objective of this project is to develop and to make available to the neuroscience research community siliconbased microelectrode arrays ("probes") for recording signals from nervous tissue, as well as critical supporting equipment for performing practical multisite neuronal recording experiments. The tiny fork-shaped silicon probes have several microelectrodes on each of their multiple shafts, and allow simultaneous recording from multiple neurons at various depths and lateral spacings. Each shaft typically occupies less volume than a pair of microwire electrodes. Using these probes, it will be possible to obtain a detailed look at a local network of neurons. Initial development of the basic technologies has been accomplished with the support of a previous grant from NSF. Probes have been manufactured using a new microfabrication process, and neural signals have been recorded with them from the cerebellar cortex of an anesthetized rat. The present grant will support efforts to further develop the instrumentation and to test it in three different neurophysiology laboratories. The goal of this funding period is to develop the technology to the point that it can be distributed to outside users at the end of the grant, through a collaboration with a commercial ncuroscience equipment vendor. With this approach, the project should have a broad and rapid impact by making silicon probe experiments accessible to the neuroscience community at large.

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The computational Neuroscience Annual Meetings will be held in the 3rd week of July in each of the next 5 years. CNS*99 will be held in Monterey, California, and subsequent meetings will alternate between Boston, Monterey, and Bozeman, Montana. The CNS meetings serve as a format for the presentation and discussion of research that employs theoretical and/or experimental methods to study the functional organization and operation of nervous systems. Presentations at the meetings focus on the nature of the processing tasks or "computations" executed by nervous systems, the codes by which information is represented during the execution of these tasks, and the structure of the neural machinery through which the computational algorithms are implemented. This meeting is intended to facilitate interdisciplinary interactions between experimentalists and theorists using a wide variety of preparations and approaches, and to help those researchers discover and articulate the general principles that emerge from these studies. The meetings are open to all interested registrants. Attendance at past meetings has been approximately equally distributed between graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and senior researchers.

This award is for the partial travel support for students and young scientists to attend the annual conference in Computational Neuroscience.The award is solely for travel support for especially needy participants. The CNS conference, now approaching its 10th year, brings together a group of internationally recognized computational neuroscientists. Along with the invited talks, the general sessions provide a comprehensive treatment of topics in the field. This meeting provides an environment that fosters communication among theoreticians, modelers, and experimental neurobiologists. The meeting and its proceedings are published in the Journal of Computational Neurobiology to ensure that accepted works can have a broad impact.

This study is a three year effort to examine what students learn in two different kinds of elementary science classrooms: traditional expository, text-oriented instruction compared with hands-on, inquiry-oriented instruction. The latter describes an approach to learning in which students acquire knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas as well as first hand experiential understanding of how scientists study the natural world. The emphasis is on learning by doing and discussing, and the priority is on scientific thinking skills and conceptual understanding. In a second phase, the study examines the teaching associated with high- and low-achieving classrooms for each of the two instructional conditions.

Millions of dollars have gone into supporting hands-on inquiry science reforms over the past several decades. These large-scale efforts, particularly important for less affluent students across the country, are vulnerable however, for they are viewed by some as too expensive or too demanding of teachers. Furthermore, there is little evidence of the relative merits of the two approaches. The nationwide emphasis on accountability, with an intense focus on literacy and math and a bias towards easily tested factual knowledge, pressures schools away from hands-on inquiry science. This study will contribute substantially to our knowledge base on the relationship between elemetary science instruction and student learning, with important implications for practitioners, policy makers and the public.

This study compares 5th grade students' learning in two instructional conditions, with 20 classes in each condition matched for key characteristics. In addition, the study explores connections between student performance and instruction, utilizing data from teacher surveys, interviews, assignments, and classroom observations. Student achievement is assessed with an array of measures, including standardized tests of language arts and math; standardized science knowledge items and a performance task from NAEP or TIMSS; other short science performance tasks; and extended science investigation tasks developed and validated for this research. The study will address long-term, important outcomes such as those called for in Project 2061: deep conceptual understanding, persistence at difficult problems, retention of important knowledge over time, and transfer of investigation strategies to challenging novel situations.

Project Summary

The use of computer simulations as a means to examine structure/function relationships in neuroscience has grown dramatically in recent years. A growing number of physiologists and even anatomists are turning to computer models to help understand the significance of the biological data they collect. This project is intended to support and enhance the use of the neuronal simulation system, GENESIS (GEneral NEural SImulation System) that has been developed and supported in the P.I.'s laboratory for the last 10 years. GENESIS is now used by more than 400 laboratories around the world as a platform on which to construct neurobiological simulations at many different levels of scale. This grant specifically provides resources to support this large number of users as well as to improve and expand access to system. With respect to basic user support, funds are provided for further expansion of online-help, web-based documentation, the GENESIS users group BABEL, and for the continued constructions of educational tutorials. Support is also provided to continue to expand the GENESIS simulation libraries, which provide both complete models as well as modeling components for reuse in constructing new models. With respect to expanding access to the system, we will redesign the system to support and enhance use over the web, as well as use on PCs. With respect to the web, we will start a major rewrite of the GENESIS interface will be maintained, however, browser support and java will allow much larger access to the system. Similarly, we will undertake a major port of GENESIS to the Windows platform for PCs. PCs have become ever more prevalent in academic computing, especially in classrooms and laboratories. Because GENESIS has always included a large focus on the use of the system for neuroscience education, it is now necessary to complete the PC port. We will of course continue to maintain our UNIX (Linux) support as well. We anticipate that this effort will substantially add to the users of the system and specifically increase the use of GENESIS in undergraduate and graduate courses.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The General Neural Simulation System (GENESIS) was first released for general use in 1988 as part of the first Methods in Computational Neuroscience Meeting at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Since its release 15 years ago, GENESIS has provided one of the foundations for the ongoing course in Woods Hole, the annual Methods in Computational Neuroscience Course offered by the European Union most recently in Portugal, and courses in Mexico, Brazil, and India, At last count GENESIS has also provided support for courses in at least 49 universities around the world where it has been used both as an instruction tool in realistic modeling of the nervous system, and as a simulation based tool for neurobiological education in general. The Book of GENESIS (Bower and Beeman, 1994, 1998), which was designed to support both computational and neurobiological instruction has sold more than 6000 copies worldwide. This substantial support for the use of GENESIS in instruction has also provided the base for extensive and growing use of this software system in biological research. Although far from a complete accounting of the scientific papers relying on GENESIS, we are aware of 183 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters not directly related to research in the P.l.'s laboratory, which reference the use of GENESIS. In the last year and a half alone, we are aware of 41 peer reviewed publications based on GENESIS. With this grant, we seek funding to support both the current and future use of GENESIS. While GENESIS has a large and growing user base, its 15 year old structure needs to be updated in order to continue to support research and education in computational neuroscience. We also request funding to continue to support our users, as well as the ongoing need to adapt GENESIS to new machine software and hardware. Finally, we request funding to support an annual meeting of the GENESIS users society BABEL.

Bio-Informatics; Bioinformatics; Biological; CRISP; Class; Complex; Computational Biology; Computer Programs; Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects Database; Computer software; Core Facility; Funding; Future; Genome; Grant; Human Resources; Infrastructure; Institution; Investigators; Manpower; Modeling; NIH; National Institutes of Health; National Institutes of Health (U.S.); Range; Regulation; Research; Research Infrastructure; Research Personnel; Research Resources; Researchers; Resources; Software; Source; Students; Support of Research; Training; United States National Institutes of Health; computer program/software; design; designing; personnel; protein expression

Arts; Bio-Informatics; Bioinformatics; Biology; CRISP; Computational Biology; Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects Database; Development; Engineering; Engineerings; Faculty; Funding; Future; Goals; Grant; Housing; Image; Institution; Interview; Investigators; Laboratories; Mediation; NIH; National Institutes of Health; National Institutes of Health (U.S.); Negotiating; Negotiation; Position; Positioning Attribute; Progress Reports; Reporting; Reports, Progress; Research; Research Personnel; Research Resources; Researchers; Resources; Salaries; Science; Source; Time; United States National Institutes of Health; Universities; Wages; falls; imaging; member; skills

Conference on Biologically Realistic Modeling in Computational Neuroscience

Lay Abstract

Increasingly, biologists are relying on computer models of the systems they study to aid in the organization of experiments and interpretation of the resulting data. The proposed meeting will bring together researchers to discuss a particular type of model: those based on a biologically accurate representation of the system
in question. This approach results in highly complex models which require state-of-the-art computers, computer software and analysis techniques. The meeting will take place over three days. The first
day is devoted to tutorials in two tracks, beginner and advanced to discuss modeling techniques and applications. The second and third days will consist of presentations of ongoing research results from
many different laboratories involved in the construction of realistic simulations. Funds will primarily be used to support travel costs of graduate students to attend the meeting, which will take place in San Antonio, Texas.

The UMB Scholars program will provide stipend and research support for 12 students (6 from Biology and 6 from Math/Statistics) to work collaboratively on advanced problems in Computational Neuroscience and Bioinformatics under the mentorship of established investigators. To facilitate this collaborative research, UMB Scholars majoring in biology will be required to add a minor in math/statistics; those majoring in math/statistics will be required to add a minor in biology. This approach offers the best way to ensure that all students are exposed to a coherent, logical and systematic series of foundational and more advanced courses in both fields. From a broader perspective, the UMB Scholars program will showcase to the much larger university community the importance and value of quantitative thinking and approaches in modern biological science. Successes of UMB Scholars following their graduation from UTSA will underscore the message that adding an academic minor in biology, math or statistics to their course of study is the best way for a student to prepare for a future in biological research. The UMB Program will serve as a catalyst for a comprehensive, coordinated and integrated restructuring the of current undergraduate curricula in biology, math, statistics and computer science to eliminate deficiencies and constraints that limit quantitative approaches in undergraduate education at this institution .The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is a public institution serving San Antonio and South Texas. Students targeted for this UMB program are the University's large Hispanic population. Currently, UTSA ranks first in the nation in the number of baccalaureate degrees awarded to Hispanics in biology and ninth in the number awarded in mathematics.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Very little is known about the prevalence of neurological disorders in people living in sub- Saharan Africa. There is an urgent need for accurate data in order for local officials to make informed evidence-based decisions on health care planning. There is also a critical need to develop a sustainable research infrastructure in these resource-poor settings to perform future analytical epidemiological, genetic and clinical studies. Our long-term goal is to help diverse African nations improve their ability to care for patients with neurological disease, by giving them the tools and infrastructure to assess the prevalence of their local neurological morbidity. Our objectives, in this and in our anticipated more comprehensive RO1 application are 1) to perform a population-based survey on the prevalence of neurological disorders in two African communities: the Hai District, Tanzania and Butajira, Ethiopia, and 2) to gain the skills necessary to assist diverse nations in assessing their neurological morbidity by studying two diverse African communities. We expect through this R21 grant to achieve three specific aims: 1) validate an updated instrument to assess for neurological disorders in resource-poor settings, 2) test the feasibility of our methods, and build the infrastructure to perform the population- based surveys, and 3) conduct pilot studies to collect preliminary data on other important scientific issues that can be addressed in the context of a prevalence study. We will do this by performing a pilot prevalence survey on neurological morbidity in the two communities, and performing several pilot studies to assess and refine our methods so as to be prepared to perform the full prevalence studies through an anticipated future R01 grant application. At the completion of the prevalence surveys, we will have identified the extent of all-cause neurological morbidity in two diverse African populations, created a physical and intellectual infrastructure for local African physicians and scientists to perform future population-based research, and gained the skills necessary to assist other African nations to do the same. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Without the foundation of accurate descriptive epidemiological data, African nations are not capable of properly planning for their health care needs. Without an existing research infrastructure, they are further prevented from performing population-based analytical epidemiology, genetic research and clinical studies. These surveys will serve as the crucial first step needed for African nations to plan properly for their health care and scientific research needs of the future.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks financial support for participation of US students, postdoctoral fellows and invited speakers at CNS*2010, an annual international computational neuroscience conference. CNS*2010 is being held under the aegis of the Organization for Computational Neurosciences, Inc. a US not-for-profit 501(c)(3) serving the needs of an international community of scientists actively engaged in using quantitative tools to address questions in neuroscience. The Specific Aims of CNS*2010 are 1) To provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of computational and theoretical models and quantitative data analyses to explain the dynamics of neural systems, in particular the brain, in health and disease across multiple scales;2) To provide a rich learning environment for students and postdoctoral fellows through tutorials and workshops led by experts;3) To engage the computational and experimental neuroscience communities in the emerging field of Neuroinformatics through a special lecture series and symposium.;4) To disseminate the conference abstracts through open-access publication accessible by the world-wide web and 5) To foster international collaboration 6) To celebrate 20 years of progress in computational neuroscience. The conference will bring together, a large body of international scientists working across scales (molecular to systems) and disciplinary roots (biology to mathematics to computational neuroscience) in San Antonio, Texas. The conference will leverage investment from the Neuroscience community in San Antonio with support from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and the University of Texas San Antonio. Both institutions are federally designated as serving populations under-represented in science and technology. The conference will include tutorials and workshops, and invited speakers and solicit for peer review abstracts and papers that include experimental, computational, engineering and theoretical approaches in neuroscience for contributed talks and posters. It will offer a forum that not only strengthens links between quantitative and experimental neurosciences, but is sufficiently broad enough to allow a discussion of interlinked neural systems at multiple scales that is needed to understand the broad spectrum impact of neurological disorders, neurotrauma, and drug addiction on neural behavior, plasticity and function. It will also be an attractive platform for fostering the budding field of Neuroinformatics. The conference will emphasize involvement of young transdisciplinary scientists, including women and other underrepresented groups in sciences in all facets, including programmatic leadership. RELEVANCE: This proposal seeks support to defray partial costs for participation of US students, postdoctoral fellows and invited speakers at CNS*2010, the nineteenth annual international computational neuroscience conference to be held July 23rd - 30, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas.